Bangalore traffic police to resume random checks to collect pending fines of Rs 390 crore
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the police had earlier discontinued on-the-spot enforcement of traffic challans and moved to Field Traffic Violation Report (FTVR) or contactless enforcement across the city.
To recover Rs 390 crore from 95 lakh traffic violations in the last three years, the Bengaluru traffic police will resume random checking of vehicles at various city roads. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the police had earlier discontinued on-the-spot enforcement of traffic challans and moved to Field Traffic Violation Report (FTVR) or contactless enforcement across the city.
“There is a pending fine of Rs 390 crore from around 95 lakh violators in the city who are all booked through contactless enforcement between 2017 and 2020. They were booked with the help of cameras installed at signal junctions, through FTVR and the cases are also booked by the police personnel by cameras and noting down licence plate numbers. Along with this, there are cases registered through ‘Public App’,” Bengaluru Joint commissioner of police (traffic), said BR Ravikanthsaid Gowda.
The police have decided to collect the pending fines from the violators during the road safety drive till February 17.
“During this period, we will flag down vehicles and check whether there are pending cases against the vehicle or rider/driver through Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) devices. If pending fines and violations are found, we’ll request the public to come forward and pay the pending fine amount by visiting the nearest traffic police station and Transport Management Centre in Queens road or through online by visiting the Bengaluru traffic police website,” he said.
Earlier, the traffic police would go to the address of the traffic violators to collect the fines. “In every traffic police station we look into the highest violators and go and find them on their address and collect the fines but this is a difficult task for the police personnel, ” said a senior police officer. “Few violators would not be residing in the address the vehicle is registered at so finding them will also be difficult; this has all led to the pending fine,” he added.
In an order recently, Gowda has instructed the traffic police officials to start implementing random checking in their jurisdictions.